In recent years, to improve the efficiency of company processes and to enable prompt reactions to a change in business environment, a demand has arisen for changes in IT processes in which various types of services provided on a network are combined. With an increase in the types of services provided by various kinds of service providers, it has become necessary for a company on the service user side to configure an optimal combination of services. On the other hand, service integrators act as hubs for providing various services, and thus release information on directories according to the types of services, and provide these services for fees according to traffic volume.
In this regard, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2005-78525 discloses a technique of searching a service, in case of using Web Services, according to a policy from among various services, and a technique of searching a single service as a target. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-110620 discloses a technique of establishing integrated Web Services for dynamically integrating a plurality of Web Services, and dynamically integrating a plurality of Web services into a single Web service. In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-248728 discloses a technique of autonomously determining, in case of using Web Services, a service to be used. Furthermore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2005-32150 discloses a technique of obtaining directory information on a Web Service corresponding to a search condition.
However, none of these disclose a quantitative evaluation to determine what services should be selected and how the services should be combined on the user side so as to be most likely to meet the policy of the user side.